


Apollonian Oracles

by OrsFri



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: 19th Century Warfare of Questionable Authenticity, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - War, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-24 02:12:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9695222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrsFri/pseuds/OrsFri
Summary: "Gilbert is a leader, and he loves his country, and so does his soldiers. He loves his soldiers, and so his soldiers love him back. He loves courage, and so his soldiers love bravery as well.He loves his prince, and he loves Ivan, so his soldiers that love their leader and love their nation, shall learn to love their mad prince the way Gilbert learns to love Ivan as well."Gilbert is a general, Ivan is a prince that no one believes. Also, there is a war.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for character death, which, honestly, is expected given that this is a war au (think around later half of 19th Century warfare).

As with every moments before a life-and-death situation, there is this beat of anticipation, this frightful precipice between excitement and damnation, that first bubbles up in your throat before mounting into a full throttle just right before a battle.

Gilbert stares at the endless stretch of unoccupied land, bleached and dull and soon to be the graves of many, and steels himself.

* * *

 

(He is the oldest kid in the block, which means he is the one to try out the new things, to push the boundaries, to drag them into trouble and shove them out, et cetera, et cetera.

Roderich will turn his head and sniff, but eyes him from the peripheral of his vision; Liz will tease and mock him, but when the time comes, be right by his side as they try out new stunts and stir up new misfits; Ludwig will be trailing behind him, somethings smirking, sometimes frowning, never getting involved, but never _not_ looking either. 

It's how they work. It's how _he_ works. He's the leader. He makes the decision, tries out everything first, and keeps the others safe.

It's how the world is.)

It is how the world is, now, narrowed down to battles upon battles, commands after commands, and orders follows after orders delivered, and Gilbert steels himself for what is essentially a futile battle as the commander of a decoy company.

"You're not going to make it," says Ivan, too smooth and too calm.

"Shut it," says Gilbert, and waits.

The battle breaks out a minute later, Ivan standing behind the lines, watching and analysing and always too far and too unconquerable to the enemies. Gilbert rushes forward, heading the thousands that march and the thousands that fight, until the roar of the battlefield rolls over him, and he is buried as one with a sea of young men and women, too loyal to live, too eager to die.

* * *

But pause; rewind.

That's not how the world works, and that's not how Gilbert works, because Gilbert is the leader, the one out front, and if he is gone, then what will happen to everyone who follows him?

Gilbert stays alive. That's how the world is.

Rewind.

* * *

"You're going to die," says Ivan, too smooth and too calm, and Gilbert nods.

"I know," he replies, shifting the rifle against his shoulder. "What are you suggesting?"

"I can offer you a way out."

Gilbert thins his lips. "You shouldn't make this difficult for everyone." The clouds begin to gather, and it's going to make the ground all muddy and sludgy, and the battle so much tougher.

He sees Ivan shifts in his peripheral. "I shouldn't, or you wouldn't?" Ivan shifts to stand beside him. He doesn't move away as their shoulders brush. "Why do you not believe me?"

The conversation is gearing towards dangerous territory. Gilbert tilts himself away. "You're a mad man."

"That's what they all say," Ivan agrees, "but you know better. You know me."

Gilbert thinks of Roderich, eyes squinted and the edges of his mouth pinched as the king frowns disapprovingly at Ivan, who first begs his father to marry off his littlest sister to Boris the Brute, and then begs his father that if he isn't willing, at least, at the very least, won't he increase the number of guards outside her room? Please? Just for that night? He also remembers the grimness of Ludwig's face as he kneels by the Queen's bed, the emptiness of his face saying all that is necessary, while Ivan shouts outside the room that he knows how to help his mother, that Ludwig is to attempt to do what he must, even if it is still experimental, even if it is taboo - even if it is sacrilegious, for the thought to be uttered. He demands for Ludwig to dare lay a knife to his mother's stomach, and claim that the remedy, before the King slaps him and command for Ivan to be shut away.

"I really don't," Gilbert finally decides, and Ivan bows his head.

* * *

Gilbert does not know when it first started, but he knows that he has always been soft towards Ivan.

("You know I have to do this," Liz murmurs, and Gilbert doesn't know what to say. "Please, Gilbert."

Liz never calls him Gilbert, and that's when he knows that she's serious about this. "Ivan said that she would live no matter what, you know."

"And you believe him?" Liz's laughter is a sharp bark. "His visions are a lie. He's mad, Gil. He always is, but you've always been soft towards him." She shakes her head. "I can't risk it. I need her to be safe."

"Liz-"

"You don't know what it's like to love like this," Liz interrupts. She swallows, and her eyes glisten rather too much. "I would give up everything for her. It is like giving away a part of myself, a piece of my soul, just for the sake of seeing her smile." Her fist tightens, the veins at the back of her hand protruding even more visibly. "I don't even want anything back. Reciprocation, another look - no, I don't need that. I would give her everything, simply because I love her."

"And she deserves your sacrifice, of course," Gilbert replies drily.

Liz shakes her head firmly, once. Twice. "Love _is_ sacrifice, Gil," she says, "it's not something to be earned. It is something to be given willingly."

That night, Liz runs away with the beloved youngest princess, Natalya, and Gilbert stands with Ivan at one of the viewing towers in the palace.

"Do you think they'll be happy?" Gilbert asks, staring at Ivan.

Ivan doesn't look away from the window. "I supposed this is the only way it could have turned out," he finally allows. "She will be happy, but she will also be plagued miserably with guilt for the rest of her life."

"I hope it's worth it," Gilbert says.

Ivan shrugs, and in that moment, he looks so lonely that all Gilbert wants to do is to lean in - lean in and hug him and tell him that no matter what happens, Gilbert believes him; Gilbert  _thinks_ he believes him, and that is more than everyone else has ever done for Ivan, and, and somehow, that just makes the entire situation even more pathetic.

"Hopefully," Ivan replies, and when he turns, the moonlight hits his face in the right angles, casting long sharp shadows over his face and accentuating the angles and the dips and the heavy bags under Ivan's eyes (they are too old, too tired, for a man in his twenties), and Gilbert's breath catches.

He has always been soft towards Ivan.)

"I really don't," Gilbert says, but his head is bowed and his shoulders tense, and a smile break over Ivan's face because, of course, Gilbert has always conceded. "What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to trust me," says Ivan, "no matter what."

"I already trust you," says Gilbert, and the world explodes.

* * *

"I already trust you," says Gilbert, and the world does not explode, but it may as well. Someone sounds the horn. The enemy troops are sighted. They are greater than predicted. The soldiers look to Gilbert, and Gilbert stares unflinchingly at Ivan, ignoring the speeding palpitations of his heart. "What now?"

"They know we are decoy," Ivan continues, as though Gilbert has not interrupted, "these troops they send here - these are all of them. They are hoping that through intimidation, they can stall as long as possible, and keep you here." Ivan pauses. "Gilbert, you're the best commander we have now that Héderváry is gone. You're needed at the Northern front."

"I am not abandoning my troops," Gilbert argues.

"You're not," Ivan agrees. "You're assuring us a quick victory, or force a speedy retreat from them, and then we will need to march over to the Northern front."

"That sounds too simple."

"You are the military strategist here, not me." Ivan shrugs. "You can work out the details."

This - this is not untrue; Gilbert thinks, and Gilbert plans. Gilbert decides to work out the final details according to how the battle progresses. 

"Hey Private," he calls, and the boy nearest to him (pale blond hair and eyes so wide they take up one-third of his face, and in that moment, Gilbert knows this boy is too young) jumps.

"Yessir?" he manages, his arms trembling, and Gilbert's stomach sinks.

"You're going to be my messenger," he instructs, "stay behind the lines. Don't get shot, huh?"

"Yessir!" the boy repeats, saluting. Gilbert grins, glancing behind at Ivan, and Ivan is staring straight back at him, jaws tight and shoulders firm, sitting atop his steed.

* * *

"Hey Private," Gilbert calls, and the soldier that turns to look at him is a stern brunette with storm clouds swirling in her eyes. "There is a message to send to the Northern front, and they didn't leave me with a courier."

The brunette looks incredulous.

"Yeah, I know; but we shouldn't have need for one supposedly." Gilbert looks around and Ivan's guards passes him a parchment, a fountain pen, and a cigarette case. Gilbert quickly scribbles a message, and makes his signature large and precise. "Pass this to an officer named Edelstein. Hurry: this is crucial to the war effort."

She salutes him, and runs off to wagons, where the men there quickly prepares a stallion for her. Gilbert turns and glances towards Ivan. Ivan stares right back, jaws tight and shoulders firm, sitting atop his steed.

"What are you doing," says Ivan, and Gilbert reminds himself that he is the leader of his company, and while Ivan is a prince, he is a mad and distrusted one, and Gilbert's responsibility lies with more than just one man.

"I trust you, Ivan, but I need to answer to my soldiers," replies Gilbert. "The solution is not just a victory, but also glory and duty."

"I hate it when you speak like that," Ivan says.

Gilbert grins. "Do I sound like your father's speeches?" he teases, and commences battle.

* * *

In every campaign, there is a lull, and there is a party: a casual, rowdy, yet sombre affair when they try too hard to be happy and not enough to mourn the dead, both of the past and of the future.

Gilbert excuses himself some time after his third or fourth mug of beer, and makes his way to his tent. But as he navigates around the various shelters, ("One, two, five - eh? One, two, three, sixth, ninth - then turn right.") he finds himself pausing outside Ivan's tent. As the prince, he has the biggest and most comfortable tent. Yet, somehow, a war is a war, and even the fanciest makeshift tent gives off a sense of rudimentary bareness. Gilbert clears his throat, and ducks under the flap.

Ivan sits beside the portable furnace with a faded fur coat draped around his shoulders. He doesn't look up. "I supposed they were right when they call me mad." He rubs his palms together. "It seems I have always been wrong."

"Don't be stupid." Gilbert sits down beside him, and after a thought, shifts closer until their sides press together. Ivan tenses at the contact, yet almost immediately proceeds to deflate against Gilbert. "You were right about them knowing we are decoys. If I hadn't known that, I wouldn't have pushed back, and we wouldn't be sitting here now, with a message from the capital promising auxiliary support and the main forces waiting for us to meet up with them by engaging in a dual-front attack."

Ivan shakes his head. "I have been wrong before," he confesses, "not just disbelieved. I made a mistake." He suddenly shifts to face Gilbert. "You do know that Father sends me here because he wants me out of the way of succession?"

"Don't let anyone hear that: that's treason."

"But you do know, don't you?" Ivan urges.

Gilbert stares into the fire. The sparks drift into the air, before vanishing amongst the smoke. "Before this - this entire thing. Your father, he spoke to me. He asked me about you."

"What?"

"He says, 'Beilschmidt, you are one of the best soldiers we ever had. But I have said that to Héderváry, and those in the innermost circle knows what she did, even if everyone else does not.'" Gilbert grabs a stick and pokes the charcoal. The sparks surge, and Gilbert thinks of fireflies. "I know then that he is the one that caused this war. Not Liz. Not you."

"And that is why he sent us both as part of decoy," Ivan realises. "I never knew he can be this cruel."

"He's not." Gilbert looks at Ivan too, Ivan with his face painted orange with grey shades by the fire, the light playing with the structures of his face and emphasises the downward turn of his lips. And they are so close, hanging so precariously at the edge, that Gilbert can't bear to look away. "We are careless."

"I know," says Ivan.

And because Gilbert is a leader, because he loves his country and his soldiers love him, he pulls away at the last moment, and salutes Ivan, before leaving the tent. He doesn't kiss Ivan, and Ivan doesn't kiss him, and that's the end of it.

* * *

"I know," says Ivan, and he kisses Gilbert.

And because Gilbert is a leader, because he loves his country and his soldiers love him, he doesn't kiss back. But because Gilbert is a man and he has been wanting for so long, he doesn't pull away either, revelling in the feeling of chapped lips against his, warm and rough and so desperately lonely.

Ivan eventually leans away, refusing to look at him, so Gilbert stands, bows, and leaves the tent.

* * *

("Hopefully," Ivan replies, and the moonlight casts his face in weird angles, accentuating dark eye circles and the glint of his cheekbones, sharpening his jaws and the edges of his eyes, and Gilbert's breath catch.

Without really thinking about it, Gilbert reaches out and traces up Ivan's jaws with the nub of his thumb. The finger digs up to the sharp bend at the inbetween between face and ear, and Gilbert cups Ivan's face.

Ivan leans into his palm.

And slowly, slowly, without ever breaking eye contact, Gilbert leans in and kisses him.)

* * *

In the end, what got Gilbert is a cannonball to the right of his chest.

* * *

"Gilbert!" Ivan yells, and Gilbert lunges to his left just in time to miss the cannonball shooting right at him.

* * *

No: that is wrong. There is no rewind. What got Gilbert, in the end, remains a cannonball that tore away the right of his chest. 

Ludwig rushes over. He's a medic now - idiot volunteered to run around the frontlines of a warzone without even a weapon - and immediately kneels down beside him, struggling valiantly to stop the bleeding, and Gilbert thinks, oh, yes, he has completed his mission and brought his company to the rendezvous zone.

("Lud, Luddy, take command. Edelstein can't do it alone. You're always watching. Take command, Luddy."

"Stop it," says Ludwig, voice steady but his eyes are wide, his pupils dilated and nostrils flared, and Gilbert almost panics because _his baby brother is scared._ But no, Gilbert is too tired to feel anything. "Stay with me, please-")

Out of the corner of his eyes, he thinks he sees the commanding officer of the opposing military take aim at Ivan, but a boy too small with hair too blond and eyes too big, leaps up and stabs the officer with his bayonet. The shot ends up going wide, and someone else shoots the boy instead.

More bodies and more slaughter. Gilbert feels himself getting colder, and he feels something wet on his cheeks, but that is not him, is it? That is Ludwig, crying over a dying man instead of running around dodging bullets, the way it should be to survive on a battlefield.

 _Oh,_ Gilbert thinks when Ivan finally looks over in his direction. He doesn't see Gilbert right away, Gilbert believes, only the strange figure of a medic curling over a hopeless man bleeding out over the ground, holding vigil like a fucking guardian angel both raging and weeping. Oh, Gilbert thinks, when Ivan finally puts two and two together and notices the insignia sewn onto the side of Gilbert's uniform, Ivan's face twisting in shock and disbelief, as one of his private guard pulls him away and yells something that somehow travels through the noise and the chaos and the increasing distance between Gilbert's own head and the reality around him:  _Your Highness, stay behind the lines!_ before the guard is struck by a stray bullet in his thigh, and if he is lucky, he will miss a major artery and survive.

Ivan's face is a mix of horror and hopelessness, and Ludwig's face is pure unadulterated despair, and Gilbert closes his eyes to shut out all the misery in the world. 

* * *

"I hope it's worth it," says Gilbert, says Ivan, says the tens and thousands of people who ever has to make a decision that changes their lives, that dangles between the precipice of excitement and damnation, of life and death.

* * *

"He's not cruel," says Gilbert, looking at Ivan, in that tent so far away from this other battlefield, the flames painting Ivan's face in strange orange light and dark shadows. "We're careless."

"I know," says Ivan, and he leans in, but stops himself at the very last moment.

Gilbert breathes out slowly through his nose, and reaches out to grab Ivan's palm. There is a shaky exhale, and Ivan finally closes the final half-inch. He kisses Gilbert. Gilbert kisses back, and it is kind of a mess, with too much teeth and too much heat, and Gilbert thinks he can hear his own blood pulsing through his ears as Ivan's free hand curves around Gilbert's back and drags him closer, chest-to-chest, as though if Ivan presses hard enough, they can meld into one being, impossible to tear apart.

(Gilbert is a leader, and he loves his country, and so does his soldiers. He loves his soldiers, and so his soldiers love him back. He loves courage, and so his soldiers love bravery as well.

He loves his prince, and he loves Ivan, so his soldiers that love their leader and love their nation, shall learn to love their mad prince the way Gilbert learns to love Ivan as well.)

Gilbert deepens the kiss as far as he dares, before Ivan finally pulls away, and Gilbert lets him.

"It's late; you should go to sleep," Ivan says, his voice hoarse.

"I'll probably be dead this time tomorrow," Gilbert states, too calmly and too smoothly.

" _I know_ ," he says, and Ivan is shaking as he tightens his grip on Gilbert's hand, before Gilbert pulls him in again.

* * *

("Love is a sacrifice," says Liz.)

**Author's Note:**

> I have never had an entire fic unfold itself to me in a span of two hours (excluding brief editing), and I have never typed so fast and so continuously before, so yes, I supposed this fic is going to become something special to me.
> 
> I have the segments of the fic overlapping etc because, well, memories and repressions and what-could-haves tend to blend together to form a central narrative in reality, and maybe I have also been reading/watching too many books/movies that focus on the inner life of a character rather than enjoy a solid narrative. This fic is also because I decide to confirm my facts on Cassandra of Troy and ended up going down a nostalgic trip rereading parts of The Charioteer.


End file.
